Allied Health: Practice Issues and Trends in the New Millenium

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Summary: Allied health practice issues and trends in the new millenni
Review: Allied health professions are not well defined, even though there has been several attempts to do so. The US Public Health Service Act defines allied health professions as: a health professional (other than registered nurse or physician assistant), who has received a certificate, an associate's degree, a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, a doctoral degree or post baccalaureate training in a science relating to health care, who shares in the responsibility for the delivery of health care services or related services, including (1) services related to the identification, evaluation and prevention of disease and disorder, (2) dietary and nutrition services, (3) health promotion services, (4) rehabilitaion services, or (5) health systems management service and who has not received a degree of doctor of medicine, a degree of doctor of osteopathy, a degree of doctor of veterinary medicine, a degree of doctor of optometry, a degree of podiatric medicine, a degree of doctor of pharmacy, a graduate degree in public health, a degree of doctor of chiropractic, a degree in health administration, a doctoral degree in clinical psychology or a degree of social work or equivaleent.
Under all circumstances this field has been growing fast and by 2005 about 4 million new job in this field will be added in the US and comprise 60% of the health care workforce. Pedro Lecca is professor and dean of the College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at Howard University in Washington DC, Peggy Valentine associate dean and Kevin Lyons the associate dean of the College of Health Professions at Thomas Jefferson University, who together with 23 contributors have compiled 19 chapters about this field. This comprehensive book discuss topics like managed care, primary health care, rehabilitation, computer technology, drug information and educational issues.
We found this book of value as a good review of the allied health care profession in the Uniteed States.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD
Director, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel. E-mail: [e-mail]

Mohammed Morad, MD
Family physician, Division for Community Health, Ben Gurion University, Box 653, IL-84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel, email: [e-mail]